The Supreme Court/The Supreme Court.iso/pc/ascii/1994/94_834/94_834.zo

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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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Nos. 94-834 and 94-835
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NORTH STAR STEEL COMPANY, PETITIONER
94-834                     v.
CHARLES A. THOMAS et al.

CROWN CORK & SEAL CO., INC., PETITIONER
94-835                     v.
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA,
AFL-CIO-CLC
on writs of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the third circuit
[May 30, 1995]

  Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification
Act (WARN or Act), 102 Stat. 890, 29 U. S. C. 2101 et
seq., obliges covered employers to give employees or their
union 60 days notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.
These consolidated cases raise the issue of the proper
source of the limitations period for civil actions brought
to enforce the Act.  For actions brought in Pennsylvania,
and generally, we hold it to be state law.

                            I
  With some exceptions and conditions, WARN forbids
an employer of 100 or more employees to -order a plant
closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period
after the employer serves written notice of such an
order.-  29 U. S. C. 2102(a).  The employer is supposed
to notify, among others, -each affected employee- or
-each representative of the affected employees.-  29
U. S. C. 2102(a)(1).  An employer who violates the
notice provisions is liable for penalties by way of a civil
action that may be brought -in any district court of the
United States for any district in which the violation is
alleged to have occurred, or in which the employer
transacts business.-  2104(a)(5).  The class of plaintiffs
includes aggrieved employees (or their unions, as
representatives), ibid., who may collect -back pay for
each day of violation,- 2104(a)(1)(A), -up to a maximum
of 60 days,- 2104(a)(1).  While the terms of the statute
are specific on other matters, WARN does not provide a
limitations period for the civil actions authorized by
2104.
  In Crown Cork, respondent United Steelworkers of
America brought a WARN claim in Federal District
Court in Pennsylvania, charging Crown Cork & Seal Co.,
Inc. with laying off 85 employees at its Perry, Georgia
plant in September 1991, without giving the required
60-day notice.  Crown Cork moved for summary judg-
ment, claiming that the statute of limitations had run.
The District Court denied the motion, holding the source
of the limitations period for WARN suits to be Pennsyl-
vania state law and the union's suit timely under any of
the arguably applicable state statutes.  833 F. Supp. 467
(ED Pa. 1993).  The District Court nevertheless certified
the question of the limitations period for immediate
interlocutory appeal under 28 U. S. C. 1292.
  The North Star respondents are former, non-union
employees of petitioner North Star Steel Company who
filed a WARN claim against the company (also in a
Federal District Court in Pennsylvania) alleging that the
company laid off 270 workers at a Pennsylvania plant
without giving the 60-day advance notice.  Like Crown
Cork, and for like reasons, North Star also moved for
summary judgment.  But North Star was successful, the
District Court holding the suit barred under the 6-month
limitations period for unfair labor practice claims
borrowed from the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA),
49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C.  160(b), a statute believed by
the Court to be -more analogous- to WARN than any-
thing in state law.  838 F. Supp. 970, 974 (MD Pa.
1993).
  The United States Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit consolidated the cases and held that a period of
limitations for WARN should be borrowed from state,
not federal, law, reversing in North Star and affirming
in Crown Cork.  32 F. 3d 53 (1994).  Like the District
Court in Crown Cork, the Court of Appeals did not pick
from among the several Pennsylvania statutes of
limitations that might apply to WARN, since none of
them would have barred either of the actions before it.
  The Third Circuit's decision deepened a split among
the Courts of Appeals on the issue of WARN's limita-
tions period.  See United Paperworkers Int'l Union v.
Specialty Paperboard, Inc., 999 F. 2d 51 (CA2 1993)
(applying state law limitations period); Halkias v.
General Dynamics Corp., 31 F. 3d 224 (CA5) (applying
NLRA limitations period), reh'g en banc granted, 1994
U. S. App. LEXIS 26998 (CA5, Sept. 22, 1994); United
Mine Workers of America v. Peabody Coal Co., 38 F. 3d
850 (CA6 1994) (same).  We granted certiorari to resolve
it, 513 U. S. ___, (1995), and now affirm.

                           II
                            A
  A look at this Court's docket in recent years will show
how often federal statutes fail to provide any limitations
period for the causes of action they create, leaving
courts to borrow a period, generally from state law, to
limit these claims.  See, e.g., Reed v. United Transporta-
tion Union, 488 U. S. 319 (1989) (claims under
101(a)(2) of the Labor-Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 522, 29 U. S. C.
411(a)(2), governed by state personal injury statutes);
Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc.,
483 U. S. 143 (1987) (civil actions under Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18
U. S. C. 1964, governed by 4-year statute of limitations
of the Clayton Act, 69 Stat. 283, as amended, 15
U. S. C. 15b); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261 (1985)
(civil rights claims under 42 U. S. C. 1983 governed by
state statutes of limitations for personal injury actions);
DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U. S. 151 (1983) (hybrid
suit by employee against employer for breach of a
collective bargaining agreement and against union for
breach of a duty of fair representation governed by
NLRA limitations period).  Although these examples
show borrowing from federal law as well as state, our
practice has left no doubt about the lender of first
resort.  Since 1830, -state statutes have repeatedly
supplied the periods of limitations for federal causes of
action- when the federal legislation made no provision,
Automobile Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S.
696, 703-704 (1966), and in seeking the right state rule
to apply, courts look to the state statute -`most closely
analogous'- to the federal act in need, Reed, 488 U. S.,
at 323, quoting DelCostello, supra, at 158.  Because this
penchant to borrow from analogous state law is not only
-longstanding,- Agency Holding Corp., supra, at 147, but
-settled,- Wilson, supra, at 266, -it is not only appropri-
ate but also realistic to presume that Congress was
thoroughly familiar with [our] precedents . . . and that
it expect[s] its enactment[s] to be interpreted in conform-
ity with them,- Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441
U. S. 677, 699 (1979).  See Agency Holding Corp., supra,
at 147.
  There is, of course, a secondary lender, for we have
recognized -a closely circumscribed . . . [and] narrow
exception to the general rule,-  Reed, supra, at 324,
based on the common sense that Congress would not
wish courts to apply a limitations period that would only
stymie the policies underlying the federal cause of
action.  So, when the state limitations periods with any
claim of relevance would -`frustrate or interfere with the
implementation of national policies,'- DelCostello, 462
U. S., at 161, quoting Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC,
432 U. S. 355, 367 (1977), or be -at odds with the
purpose or operation of federal substantive law,-
DelCostello, supra, at 161, we have looked for a period
that might be provided by analogous federal law, more
in harmony with the objectives of the immediate cause
of action.  See, e.g., Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis &
Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350, 362 (1991); Agency
Holding Corp., supra, at 153, 156; DelCostello, supra, at
171-72.  But the reference to federal law is the excep-
tion, and we decline to follow a state limitations period
-only `when a rule from elsewhere in federal law clearly
provides a closer analogy than available state statutes,
and when the federal policies at stake and the practical-
ities of litigation make that rule a significantly more
appropriate vehicle for interstitial lawmaking.'-  Reed,
supra, at 324, quoting DelCostello, supra, at 172.

                            B
  This case falls squarely inside the rule, not the excep-
tion.  The presumption that state law will be the source
of a missing federal limitations period was already
-longstanding,- Agency Holding Corp., supra, at 147,
when WARN was passed in 1988, justifying the assump-
tion that Congress -intend[ed] by its silence that we
borrow state law,- ibid.  Accordingly, the Court of
Appeals identified four Pennsylvania statutes of limita-
tions that might apply to WARN claims: the 2-year
period for enforcing civil penalties generally, Pa. Stat.
Ann., Tit. 42, 5524(5) (Purdon 1981 and 1994 Supp.);
the 3-year period for claims under the Pennsylvania
Wage Payment and Collection Law, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit.
43, 260.9a(g) (Purdon 1992); the 4-year period for
breach of an implied contract, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 42,
5525(4) (Purdon 1981); and the six years under the
residual statute of limitations, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 42,
5527 (Purdon 1981 and 1994 Supp.).  See 32 F. 3d, at
61.  Since the complaints in both Crown Cork and North
Star were timely even under the shortest of these, there
is no need to go beyond the decision of the Court of
Appeals to choose the best of four, and it is enough to
say here that none of these potentially-applicable
statutes would be -at odds- with WARN's -purpose or
operation,- or -`frustrate or interfere with'- the intent
behind it.  DelCostello, 462 U. S., at 161.
  The contrast with DelCostello is clear.  There the
Court declined to borrow state limitations periods for so-
called -hybrid- claims brought by an employee against
both his employer and his union, for the reason that the
state law candidates -typically provide[d] very short
times- for suit (generally 90 days) and thus -fail[ed] to
provide an aggrieved employee with a satisfactory
opportunity to vindicate his rights.-  Id., at 166 and
n. 15.  Here, the shortest of the arguably usable state
periods, however, is two years, which is not short
enough to frustrate an employee seeking relief under
WARN.  At the other end, even the longest of the
periods, six years, is not long enough to frustrate the
interest in -a relatively rapid disposition of labor
disputes.-  See Automobile Workers, supra, at 707
(borrowing a 6-year state limitations period for claims
brought under 301 of the Labor Management Relations
Act).
  We do not take petitioners to disagree seriously, for
the heart of their argument is not that the state periods
are too long or too short.  They submit instead that, if
we look to state law,  WARN litigation presents undue
risks of forum shopping, such that we ought to pick a
uniform federal rule for all claims (with the NLRA, and
its 6-month limitations period for unfair labor practices
claims, 29 U. S. C.  160(b), being the federal act most
analogous to WARN).  But even taking petitioners on
their own terms, they make no case for choosing the
exception over the rule.  They are right of course that
the practice of adopting state statutes of limitations for
federal causes of action can result in different limita-
tions periods in different states for the same federal
action, and correct that some plaintiffs will canvass the
variations and shop around for a forum.  But these are
just the costs of the rule itself, and nothing about
WARN makes them exorbitant.
  It is, indeed, true that -practicalities of litigation-
influenced our rationale for adopting a uniform federal
rule for civil actions under RICO.  Agency Holding
Corp., 483 U. S., at 153.  But WARN's obligations are
triggered by a -plant closing- or a -mass layoff- at a
-single site of employment,- 29 U. S. C. 2101(a)(2)-(3),
and so, unlike RICO violations, do not -commonly
involve interstate transactions.-  Agency Holding Corp.,
supra, at 153.  WARN thus fails to share the -multistate
nature- of RICO, id., at 154, and is so relatively simple
and narrow in its scope, see id., at 149 (listing the
many categories of crimes that can be predicate acts for
a RICO violation), that -[n]o [comparable] practicalities
of litigation compel us to search beyond state law for a
more analogous statute of limitations.-  Reed, 488 U. S.,
at 327.  Since, then, a state counterpart provides a
limitations period without frustrating consequences, it is
simply beside the point that even a perfectly good
federal analogue exists.
  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
                                              Affirmed.